Builder orders Army Corps to pay for bomb cleanup

SENTINEL EXCLUSIVE

Miami-based builder Lennar Homes has demanded that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers move quickly to clean up the bombs and debris it left in southeast Orlando after World War II.

Lennar has been saying the builder wants the Army to pay back all the money the home builder spent to conduct its own hunt and to remove live bombs in the Warwick neighborhood it built near Odyssey Middle School.

FOR THE RECORD - **********CORRECTION OR CLARIFICATION PUBLISHED MARCH 26, 2008***********A headline on Page B1 of Thursday's Local & State section, accompanying an article about the cleanup of home sites near the Pinecastle Jeep Range in southeast Orlando, mischaracterized the contents of a letter that builder Lennar Homes sent to the Army Corps of Engineers. Lennar did not request in this letter restitution for its cost to remove bombs.*************************************************************************

"The Corps has compounded its past failures by its recent indecisiveness and inaction in addressing the problems it has created," the builder states in a letter to the Corps.

"Lennar is putting the Army Corps on notice that the use, clean-up, mapping and re-mapping of the range area dating back to World War II obligate the federal government to do the right thing on behalf of concerned homeowners and the community -- now," Lennar division President Wayne Broedel said in a statement e-mailed to the Orlando Sentinel.

"Lennar believes the U.S. government owes the community better explanations and greater accountability."

The Corps is on track for a methodical approach to cleaning up the former Pinecastle Jeep Range that could take years. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods are roiling with rumors, fears of bombs and plummeting home values.

More than 125 live munitions and tons of debris have been uncovered since July.

The work that the Corps has done so far was on an emergency basis because of the potential risk to schoolchildren.

The Corps recently set the ground work for a $3.4 million, two-year investigation into where more bombs might be lurking on or near the former 12,483-acre range off Lee Vista Boulevard.

After that is finished, it's unclear when cleanup work would begin because the bombing range has to compete for money and manpower with more than 700 other old military sites across Florida that need to be cleaned up.

It's also unclear how long the work could take. The Corps spent about four years cleaning up a much smaller, 127-acre bombing range under an Arlington, Texas, neighborhood.

As for reimbursing Lennar or anyone else who cleans up the Army's old mess, the official answer is "No," said Amanda Ellison, a Corps spokeswoman.

"The government cannot reimburse you for work it did not perform," she said.

Lennar didn't say how much money it has spent in its own bomb-removal efforts, or what it would do if the Corps doesn't agree to its demands.

But the certified letter, sent from a Dallas law firm, gives the Corps an April 1 deadline to respond. Ellison said the Corps had no comment on the letter because it hadn't reached the desk of Wandell Carlton, who is in charge of the cleanup.

Lennar's leaders aren't the only ones who want the Corps to hurry up.

Resident William Dore owns a home in the Windsor neighborhood. Dore said he thinks the cleanup should have been over and done with by now.

"It's been what, six months, and they haven't even come into my neighborhood," he said. "When are they going to get here? How safe are we? How can we be sure?"